Friday, May 17, 2013
Storage Market Sees Double Digit Growth in the First Quarter of 2013

The worldwide personal and entry-level storage (PELS) market grew 73.4% year over year with 20.2 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2013 (1Q13), according to data released by the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The PELS market includes storage products and solutions with a single bay through twelve bay configurations that are manufactured and marketed for individuals, small offices/home offices, and small businesses.

Shipment value experienced growth of 54.1% year over year to $1.8 billion. This is the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in worldwide shipment value.

"The first quarter of 2013 brought strong shipment and revenue growth as well as continued recovery to the personal and entry-level storage market," said Liz Conner, Senior Research Analyst, Storage Systems. "A year after the PELS market saw record declines due to the Thailand floods and resulting hard disk drive (HDD) shortage, the PELS market has recovered back to pre-flood levels. Continued end user data growth, increased awareness on the need for data storage/back-up, declining average selling prices, and evolving vendor product offerings have all attributed to the recovery in the PELS market."

HDD vendors continue to increase share in PELS units shipped, gaining 14.7 points year over year to grow to 76.1% market share. However the entry-level storage market continues to be dominated by the mainstream non-HDD vendors, who saw unit shipments shares increase 3.5 percentage points year over year to 70.8% market share.

According to IDC, the entry-level storage market continued to grow with unit shipments growing 1.2% year over year. Specifically, the entry-level market saw strong growth in the higher bay devices (6, 8, and 12 bays), which saw units shipped grow 38.2% year over year.

In 1Q13 the personal storage market saw good growth in dual-bay products, where unit shipments were up 43.6% year over year. Single bay personal storage devices remain the most popular choice, representing 96.8% of the personal storage units shipped in 1Q13.

Personal storage represents 99.1% of the PELS units shipped and 89.8% of the shipment value in 1Q13.